


Spiders and Sweaters

by ironyruinedmylife



Series: 13 Days of Hartmon [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Cisco Ramon: Big Ol' Softie, Cisco is amused, Harrison Wells is a shady man, Hartley is Big on halloween, M/M, decorating competitions, hartley takes spooking seriously, heavily implied shenanigans, sweater competitions, take that how you will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 11:23:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8325898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironyruinedmylife/pseuds/ironyruinedmylife
Summary: Long ago, there was a man, a man named Cisco Ramon. A man with a heart as big as his genius. A man who was really rather confused about why his boss, a well known killjoy was handing out Halloween decorations and demanding that they 'finally beat that jerk Hewitt'. Watch as Cisco battles cobwebs, unveils a secret like no other and is taken aback by his own emotions!





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Hartley Rathaway is spooky to the extremo y'all, Hartley Rathaway doesn't fuck around about Halloween

It was the first of October, and Cisco was rather shaken. Normally he would be fine, normally this would be normal behaviour, normally Cisco would even join in. But this was unprecedented, even at Star Labs, _especially_ at Star Labs, where the second in command was a _total_ killjoy and broke out in hives whenever he saw people having fun. And yet here Cisco was, listening to his boss delegating various tasks.   
  
_Decorating_ tasks.  
  
 _Oye Madre_ , the man had even laminated ‘spookiness charts’ and was passing them out.  
  
And everyone seemed…totally down with this? Everyone was nodding enthusiastically, Caitlin had even brought in some fake spiders (“Hartley they’re _very_ spooky and I don’t care that you’re scared of them.”) despite a glower from their boss, who reluctantly nodded as he handed out various ghost themed decorations.  
  
“This year we have to step it up, I will _not_ lose to Mercury Labs again.” Hartley stated ominously as he clutched at some fake cobwebs. Cisco blinked rapidly as he processed the words, trying desperately to find a sensible meaning in them. He came up blank and was about to resolve to check the Labs wiki page that night when Hartley saw his confusion and rolled his eyes  
  
“Every year we decorate the labs and apparently Mercury Labs enjoys trying to upstage me- _Us_.” Hartley blinked and passed him some plastic bats “It became an unofficial competition, and the judge is always, _always_ in a Dracula cosplay, and last year Mercury won, those _overcompensating_ , _underperforming_ little fu-”  
  
Cisco raised an eyebrow as Hartley adjusted his glasses, blushing furiously. “You’re big on Halloween, I’m guessing.” Cisco purred, hiding a snicker behind the mountain of webbing Hartley had forced upon him. Hartley’s blush darkened as he nodded and _huh_ , Cisco guessed he was kind of cute when he wasn’t being a douchebag.   
  
“It's not even that big of a deal, all you win is a little kids costume tournament trophy.” Hartley mumbled, shrugging.   
  
“You want it desperately, don’t you?”   
  
“ _So_ badly, I’ll stop at _nothing_ , literally nothing, I _will_ become a zombie if I have to.” He growled. Cisco blinked, Hartley took a deep breath.   
  
“I _really_ wanna beat them this year.” He continued, half whining as he expertly untangled some ghost themed fairy lights. Cisco hummed in response. “That _dick_ Hewitt keeps trying to one up me- fuck, _us_ , anyway, last year he discovered a new compound that could glow in the dark in different colours depending on the light frequency and didn’t tell _anyone_ until Halloween and the judge _loved_ it and-” Hartley made a frustrated little noise and Cisco barely restrained himself from a quick ‘awww’ “I hate his guts.”   
  
“You’re _really_ passionate about this, aren’t you?” Cisco grinned at Hartley’s distracted glare “It’s kind of sad.”   
  
“Fuck off, you still watch _cartoons_.” Hartley growled as he smiled at an intern who was trying desperately to gain his approval, stringing up the cobwebs around the Cortex ceiling, despite the fact that she was barely as tall as them. Cisco gasped in mock outrage   
  
“How _dare_ you, sir, I’ll have you know that the Avatar series is world renowned.” He replied.   
  
“Please, it's Zuko’s glo up that's world renowned.” Cisco blinked. Hartley froze, eyes darting away from his armful of decorations as they snapped up to meets Cisco’s. “Oh.” He murmured. And damn, if that wasn’t the cutest noise Cisco had ever heard, but more importantly-  
  
“ _Oh my god_.” Cisco smiled widely as Hartley began to shake his head  
  
“You heard nothing, I didn’t say anything-”  
  
“You _lied_ to me-”  
  
“No, you know nothing, you heard wrong-”  
  
“You’re a total _nerd_ -”  
  
“Anyone seen Harrison? I’d best be going, he might have slipped on…chemicals-” Cisco grabbed his arm, Hartley stared imploringly at him, silently begging him not to say anything. Cisco began to emit a very high pitched noise as he bounced up and down, grinning widely “Please don’t.”   
  
“Hey guys, Hartley’s a massive nerd!” Cisco called happily, Hartley looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and die “He watches Avatar-” The occupants of the Cortex turned to watch as Cisco waved Hartley’s arm about, coming dangerously close to unbalancing the mountain of spooky decorations.   
  
“Cisco…” Hartley protested weakly, Cisco smiled at him the way a cat smiles at a canary  
  
“ _And_ he has a crush on Prince Zuko!” He finished, bowing a little before Hartley wrenched his arm away, hiding his blush in the cobwebs.   
  
“I hope you aren’t fighting again, boys.” Both of them snapped to attention as Dr Wells walked in, the rest of the room turned to hide their snickers in their tasks. Hartley smiled happily   
  
“Nope, no fighting here.” He replied. Cisco grinned widely   
  
“In fact I was _just_ telling everyone about how Hartley-” He was cut off by a swift elbow to the ribs, he glanced at Hartley to see him staring blankly ahead, a small, threatening smile on his face “-Is a _very_ good decorator, have you seen these ghosts?” Cisco recovered smoothly.  
  
Dr Wells raised an eyebrow and they both laughed sheepishly as they realised how little that had fooled him. He smiled at them warmly, and everyone silently seethed just a little as their boss made it clear exactly who was favoured in Star Labs “Okay then, boys, have fun.” With that he walked off, before stopping a few paces from Hartley “Oh and, Hart?”  
  
“Mmm?” Hartley replied absently as he rummaged around in a box of variously sized plastic bats  
  
“Remember your Halloween sweater, you can’t borrow my spare again this year.” Hartley’s head snapped up as he glared, blushing furiously as Dr Wells winked and ruffled his hair, before walking off.   
  
Hartley angrily tried to correct his hair and ignored Cisco’s curiosity. “What the hell was that about?” And if something about the thought of Hartley and Dr Wells being all cute and Halloween-y and sharing spooky sweaters didn’t sit right with him, then only he had to know.   
  
“Separate competition, who has the coolest Halloween sweater. I forgot mine last year. He won.” Hartley replied shortly. Cisco blinked at him  
  
“Dude, you _have_ to get out more.” He mumbled in awe, shaking his head a little.   
  
Hartley promptly stomped on his foot and walked off.

* * *

A month later they held the trophy victoriously above their heads as the staff of Star Labs cheered and the staff of Mercury Labs scowled mutinously. Hartley had smiled widely as Hewitt had shaken his hand, handing over the trophy, Hartley had walked back to his team, started the cheering and promptly wiped his hand on Cisco’s jacket.   
  
“That ain’t right, stop, dude, thats _so_ gross.” Cisco protested, even as the air decided to evacuate his lungs when he finally registered how pretty Hartley was when he smiled.   
  
“He slimed _all_ over me, I need five showers, at least three shots _and_ a nap, Cisco, so fuck directly off.” Hartley replied cheerfully, grinning wildly. Dr Wells walked over and Hartley grinned as he was swept up in a hug, throwing his arms around Dr Wells' neck as Cisco pretended not to be horribly jealous.   
  
“We won!” Dr Wells stated, laughing as Hartley echoed him, grinning delightedly as he was finally set down. “You did amazingly well this year, Hart.”   
  
Cisco scowled as Hartley preened, blushing at the praise “Cisco was _awesome_ , seriously, I don’t think we’d have won without him.” Hartley linked arms with him and Cisco stared as Dr Wells graciously offered him a smile too   
  
“I guess _someone_ had to stop you from pulling a Frankenstein.” He mumbled self consciously, Hartley laughed, the world had apparently decided to turn upside-down, Cisco thought as he stared at his coworker, who looked so _happy_ , and _pretty_ , and _damn_ _it_ , Francisco Ramon how _dare_ you get a crush on yet another unattainable hottie?   
  
“I still think we could have pulled it off.” Hartley protested playfully. Cisco raised an eyebrow at him   
  
“You really wanna have this debate now?” He asked, Hartley snickered and shook his head, turning back to Dr Wells  
  
“So, Harrison, time to see who wins this years prize.” He stated, raising an eyebrow challengingly. The staff of Star Labs helpfully reacted, oohing and aahing as Dr Wells nodded seriously. Cisco blinked as he backed towards Caitlin   
  
“What's happening?” He asked as both of them began to remove their jackets. She giggled as the crowd wolf whistled appreciatively.   
  
“The sweater competition. My money’s on Hartley.” She stated seriously. Finally all scarves had been removed and the pair turned to face each other.

Dr Wells was wearing a sweater with a small ghost depicted carrying an armful of bottles, the caption reading ‘I’m here for the boos’.

Hartley nodded appreciatively, but remained confident as he turned to face the crowd, his own sweater depicting several candles, and a ghost in a leotard and one glove, the caption reading ’Seyoncé’.  
  
The crowd went _wild_ as Dr Wells dramatically fell to his knees, and even Cisco giggled at the sight of Hartley jumping up and down, grinning ear to ear as he was swarmed by his cheering colleagues. Eventually they made it back to Star Labs and Cisco found Hartley still smiling into a mug of what looked suspiciously like warm cider  
  
“Hey.”  
  
“Hey.” Hartley replied softly. The dim light made his eyes stand out against his pale skin and suddenly Cisco realised that he was staring, and that he never really wanted to stop. “Tonight was interesting.” Hartley offered.   
  
“Yeah, it was.” He replied. “If I didn’t already know you’re a robot and don’t experience emotion, I would think that you even had fun.”   
  
Hartley hid his laugh behind his hand, and it was the most innocent gesture Cisco had ever seen. “Sorry, no, I haven’t downloaded the ‘Fun’ upgrade yet.” He stated, running a hand through his hair.   
  
“Why are you so big on Halloween? I’ve never met anyone so into it.” Cisco asked quietly. Hartley smiled at the ground as he curled around the warmth of his drink, sighing lightly.   
  
“When I was little, my parents were always there for Christmas, and it was… _unpleasant_. They didn’t celebrate Halloween so I was left alone with my little sister, and I got to organise _everything_ , I got to decorate the house, carve the pumpkins, make the costumes, I mean, we weren't allowed out but our nanny would hide in the rooms and we'd pretend to go trick or treating, it was the _one_ holiday that our parents didn’t ruin for us. We even gave each other presents, sweaters usually. It was the only day I could guarantee that she’d have fun.”   
  
Cisco blinked.   
  
“She sounds sweet.” He offered simply. Hartley glanced up at him like he was searching for something, blinking as he failed to find it, then smiled. And Cisco had never seen anything quite so breathtakingly beautiful in his life.   
  
“She is.” He replied, turning to watch the people crowding the Cortex. He sighed softly and let his head fall onto Cisco’s shoulder, and Cisco felt him relax just a little as he pressed a kiss to the top of Hartley’s head.   
  
“So...we’ll share the trophy?”   
  
“Over my dead body.”   
  
“Please?”  
  
 _“Over my rotting corpse._ ” 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Please leave a comment and kudos!


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